Sawyer is 1!

Sawyer's long curls are gone, and he looks so grown up.  I took some pictures of Sawyer at his house the other day, and it's very hard for me to take indoor photos with natural light.  I'm working on it though.  

Looks just like his dad in this one.

Thanksgiving in California

We had planned to go to California to visit my family for Thanksgiving, but we heard of the big blizzard that was coming and decided not to go.  Brendan's dad offered us his truck to use, so at the last minute we decided to go and try and beat the storm.  It took us 11 hours to get to Reno, and then we stayed in a hotel.  The next morning we finished our drive from Reno to Orangevale in 5 hours.  It usually only takes 2 hours from Reno, but there was traffic slowing us down, not the snow.  We had told my family we weren't coming, so it was quite a surprise when we all showed up.  

We stopped in Truckee, and Bruce and Brendan took turns filling the truck with snow.  We had a snowball fight when we arrived home.

The day before Thanksgiving, we attended the 24th annual Fox Family Turkey Skate.  Every year we rent out a roller rink with all of our relatives.  Even my 84 year old Grandpa Haag was skating.

A few of my family members on Thanksgiving day.  Four siblings weren't able to make it.

We went to San Francisco the day after Thanksgiving, which is a nightmare for shopping of course.  We met up with Brendan's uncle Pete for the lighting of the Macy's Christmas tree in Union Square.

My sisters, Breeze and Holly, came with us for the fun!

Pete took us out to eat at the hotel he works at on Nob Hill.  It was delicious food and fun to catch up with Pete.

Smith Family

I mentioned earlier that Hazel is the only model I have to practice my photography, and I end up taking a lot of pictures of her.  My friend, Diana Smith, took me up on my offer to take some photos for her.  Her  baby Olivia is three months old and kind of at an in between stage.  She isn't a newborn, so she doesn't fit in those small baskets asleep, and she can't sit up, but I still managed to get some cute shots of her.  Her are just a few.

Towards the end she just wanted to fall asleep.  Thanks Diana!  It was a lot of fun!

Ward Halloween Party

Brendan and I are on the activities committee in our ward, and we really enjoy it.  On Friday night we had a Halloween party and chili cook off.  It looked really nice in the end, but the pictures don't really do it justice.  My tripod is broken, so I had to use my flash unfortunately.  These are just some pictures while we were setting up, but we had the lights dimmed, with our fog machine going and Brendan had some cool Halloween tunes playing.  People also brought their carved pumpkins for the centerpieces and to enter our pumpkin carving contest.  We also had a costume parade and contest.

 Brendan and I saw the striped and polka dot pumpkins on the Martha Stewart show and decided to give it a try.  I thought they kind of turned out cute.

Brendan is setting up the speakers, and Hazel is tagging along.

Brendan and I made the tree by spray painting sticks and a pot.  We hung garland and some ghost pops from it.  We also made homemade rootbeer with dry ice in the cauldrons.  

We downloaded and used this cute invitation from Shauna Younge posted on Twig and Thistle.

Urban Outfitters Sweater Girl

(Photo taken from Urban Outfitters)

Many of you know that Brendan's family owns Campus Plaza Apartments, and I have the great job of being the pool cleaner.  This morning Brendan's cousin called from New York to tell him that Urban Outfitters apparently had a photo shoot there and there were pictures of the Campus Plaza Pool in their catalog and on their website.  Go here and here to see more pictures.   I guess the photographer is a student at BYU and her clients are Urban Outfitters and Columbia Records.  Good thing I've been keeping the pool grounds clean.  Who would have thought our pool would get so much publicity?

Costumes

I had been wanting to take some pictures of Hazel in her Halloween costume, so I invited my friend Tabitha and her son Sawyer to come along.  Brendan's sister is also in town, so we invited her to bring Clara and Montgomery to add to the cuteness.  It was a lot of fun, but it can be hard to get several kids to look at the camera.  We had a strawberry, a monkey, a kangaroo, and Tinkerbell.

Sawyer

While we were waiting for Brendan to get home from work and help us with the hay for our Halloween shoot, we walked to the duck pond and I snapped some pictures of Sawyer.  Such a cutie!

Russian Friends

Our friends, Daniel and Sasha, came and visited from Russia.  Brendan has been friends with Daniel since his mission, and we met Sasha two years ago when Brendan and I visited Russia.  Brendan met up with them in Las Vegas and drove them up here to hang out.  We visited Sundance and also drove the Alpine loop.  Sasha was able to attend his first American football game, and also visited Temple Square. It was a fun weekend!

Farm Fest

On Saturday we went to a Farm Fest in Payson with Brendan's parents and his sister who is in town with her two kids.  Grandma Rowland had some cowboy and cowgirl attire ready for the grandkids.  It was kind of a small festival, but I think Hazel had fun riding the pony, feeding the animals, and going on a hayride.  I managed to get a few cute pictures of Hazel and Montgomery, but not really any good ones of Clara.  I will make sure and snap some more of her on our next outing.  Hazel really likes having other kids to play with, so it has been fun having cousins in town.